


Is That A Yes?

by bluecarrot



Series: tumblr tumblr tumblr prompts!!! [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, First Kiss, First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Burr has a book that Alexander REALLY NEEDS, okay, and he's had it out for like months and and and</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is That A Yes?

**Author's Note:**

> written 7/10/16
> 
> inspiration from the lovely AU masterpost by tumblruser nerds-are-cool  
> "You’re overdue on this book and I want it so I’m tracking u the fuck down"
> 
> i keep writing these tiny bits of fluff. i don't know why. they're not any good but, idk, it's been a long year, okay, don't hassle me

"Pardon me."

Burr barely raises his eyes above the book. It's a short, wiry-looking kid in a over-sized green hoodie. Probably a freshman. He ignores him.

 _"Pardon me,"_ says the kid again, like Burr just didn't hear him, like anyone could have possibly missed his frenetic tone -- especially not someone who is all of two feet away. The frosh is a mess.

Burr keeps reading. It gets worse. 

"Are you Aaron Burr?"

"Who's asking?"

"Alexander Hamilton." The kid sticks out a hand. It's probably dirty. Burr doesn't offer up his own.

"Pleasure." He drops his gaze back to the next line but doesn't bother to read it because he knows as sure as anything that he will hear that _goddamn voice_ again --

"You have the book I need."

"I'm sorry?"

"I need that book. And _you're_ holding it."

"I am _holding_ this book because I am _reading_ this book," Burr says, very slow, like he's speaking to a very young child rather than a student at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. " _I_ checked it out, _I_ am reading it, _I_ need --"

"I need it for my class. And you first checked it out _three months_ ago."

"So?"

"So -- I need it." Hamilton shifts his weight. He looks uncomfortable, nervy, ready to fight. He also looks faintly incredulous, like he's thinking Burr should just _give_  him the book because he asked.

Ridiculous. "How did you find out my name?"

"You're the only one who has ever checked it out. Well, not in the last couple of years anyway. Somebody did before you started here. But last year it was no one, and the year before that it was no one, and this year it's only been _you_ , and every time it comes due back to the library you renew it again. And I've been really patient with you, all things considered, but I _need_ it now, and --"

"That doesn't explain how you know my name. Do you work for the library? Do I owe fines?" 

It's a rhetorical question. Aaron Burr does not owe fines. He never owes fines. He returns his books on time.

Hamilton actually squirms. "Nooo, not exactly. Are you going to give it to me now?"

"Absolutely not. So -- what, did you hack into their computer system?"

"Um. Well --"

"You know that's illegal."

"Well how _could_ I know that, Burr, when you are literally holding the book on unlawful access cases in New York State from 1996-1998 in your stupid little hands right now?"

_Stupid? Little?_ He stands up, stuffing his _little_ hands into his pockets and looking down his considerable height on the smaller man. "Look. Hamilton. I'm sure that we can --"

And Hamilton, that _fucker,_ snatches the library book off the table and takes off running.

Burr swears and grabs his bag and then he's running too.

Hamilton has the advantage. It's sort of unbelievable that anyone so small could be so fast, but he did have a head start and he isn't encumbered by a bag, stuffed with heavy law books, knocking about on his hips with every step. He's already out the door by the time Burr gets down into the lobby, and then they are both outside, flying down the steps, weaving and dodging an irritating wave of pedestrians who seem bent on being smushed. Hamilton keeps glancing back and Burr keeps following, keeping a good pace, not wasting breath on shouting. He ran cross-country in school and he knows how to pace himself and he knows he can get that little fuck (and the book, which is suddenly taken second priority) if they just _keep on going_.

Hamilton goes around a stand of bushes and trees that are meant to give the impression of greenery without actually obstructing traffic, and though Burr is following just few steps behind, he's only lost the line of sight for a second, but already he is gone into the trees, a green blur among green.

And Burr follows.

Hamilton has one foot up in a fucking tree and he's trying to climb it and what the hell is he _thinking?_ Does he plan to jump out and fly? What a fuckwit. 

Burr drops his bag to the side and grabs him by the back of his hoodie and pulls down, hard.

Every action has an equal opposite reaction: that is the basic tenant of physics, it's straightforward enough, but Burr has never good at science and right now he is angry and he doesn't foresee the obvious consequence of yanking someone out of a tree, but here it is, that consequence, literally fallen on top of him.

For a second they both just lay there together, dazed.

Burr thinks  _Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?_  because for a little guy Hamilton is  _solid_ , and now he's struggling to get up, like a turtle fallen on its back -- but if he gets away he will _never_ see that book again, there's no question about it, so he wraps his arms around the wiggling squirming aggravation and rolls over and dumps Hamilton on the ground again, on his back this time -- and sits on top of him for good measure, straddling his waist and putting both hands on his shoulders. "I. Need. That. Book."

Hamilton's eyes are wide and he's red in the face, too, presumably from anger. "You weren't even reading it. You were just flipping pages and glaring."

"It's not a _novel_ \-- Nevermind. I'm not going to argue with you. I'm going to get up, call the police, tell them all about how you hacked into the --"

"No. Don't. Please. _Please_. You can't." He's covered in bits of dried leaves and tree bark and sap and dirt and pine needles, it's distracting, and Burr can feel his body, feel his heat, even through their clothes.

Burr is feeling a bit -- disheveled -- himself. He frowns. Whatever. It doesn't matter. "Why the fuck not?"

"Campus honor code. They'll kick me out. I'll lose my scholarship. Burr, I _need_ that scholarship." He actually looks scared.

Scared and young.

Scared and _cute._

And Burr is sitting right on top of him.

So Burr shifts a little, he's decidedly uncomfortable now but unwilling to move for several reasons. "Give me the book and then we'll discuss it."

"I can't very well give it back with your ass on me, now, can I?"

"Stop being reasonable," Burr says in a severe tone. He's trying not to laugh.

Hamilton starts to smile back at him and tucks it away instead. "It's over there." _There_ could be anywhere. He wiggles a little, apparently trying to get free; Burr glares. 

Hamilton goes still. He looks disingenuous. "I tossed it. Um. Under the bush. That one."

"Fine." Burr doesn't move.

"You're sitting on me."

"I know that."

"You said you'd get up when I gave it back to you."

"I said we would talk," he says, splitting hairs, because he doesn't want Hamilton to win this argument and he doesn't want to get up; he wants to stay right here and keep on not embarrassing himself -- but that option is gone. He swallows, moves away, sits back down. Clears his throat.

Hamilton sits up. He brushes leaves out of his hair. "You're dirty, Aaron Burr. You're covered in pine needles and sap."

Burr is feeling dirty. "Whose fault is that? And where is it? I thought you said it was right under the bush."

"I didn't specify _which_ bush."

But there is the familiar yellow-and-black cover; Burr grabs it and holds on protectively. "You need to learn to keep your hands off other people's things."

"We're both students here. That book is as much mine as it is yours."

"I'm a junior, I pay my own tuition, you are a freshman on a scholarship, and what's far more relevant is that _I borrowed it in the first place_."

"You've had it three months! And how do you know I'm a freshman? You don't know that." 

"I would have noticed you," says Burr, without meaning to say it. But it's true.

Hamilton's eyes go wide again for a second but he only says, "You don't pay your own tuition. _Nobody_ pays their own tuition here. You could buy a block of houses at home for what you'd pay for this tuition. -- _And_ you're black," he adds, like that proves something.

"I'm a legacy student," Burr says in an affected, insolently languid drawl. "We Burrs paid for half the campus. Nice to meet you, though, Hamilton from the _barrio_. Now -- if you don't mind --"

"Hey. Wait."

"What?" He's standing, brushing off pine needles, rubbing at the sticky sap on his hands that is doubtless all over his trousers too. _You're dirty, Aaron Burr._  What a shithead. He's probably the single most annoying, aggravating, _frustrating_ person Burr has ever met --

"You said we'd talk."

"That's not exactly -- sure, okay. We can talk. So go ahead. Talk. Talk _fast._ I've got other stuff to do. What is it?"

Hamilton is a little flushed. He takes a deep breath. "Are you seeing anyone?"

" _What?"_

"Seeing. Dating. Sleeping with. Whatever. Do you want me to say it in Spanish? ¿ _Estás jodiendo --_ "

"What difference can that possibly make to you?"

"Well," says Hamilton, definitely blushing now, "I want you to go out with me."

Burr laughs out loud. "You are _insane_."

"Is that a no?"

"It's -- you are --"

"That sounds like a yes."

"It is _not_ a yes." It's not a _no_ , either. He remembers the feeling of Hamilton beneath him, their heat combining, and his body remembers it too; he looks away. "Hamilton, you're a human disaster."

Hamilton looks thoughtful. "That really isn't a no."

Burr grinds his teeth. "It's certainly not a yes."

And tiny little Alexander Hamilton, who is rapidly increasing in size to be the biggest aggravation Burr has ever experienced in his _entire life_ , leans forward and raises up on his toes and kisses him.

It is not quick.

At last they shift apart, slightly, and Burr realizes he's got a death-grip on that skinny arm, but he can't quite let go of it either.

He says a very bad word.

Hamilton looks positively  _entranced,_ as if it was a suggestion rather than a swear. "We'll do that bit later, maybe. Tonight? After our date?"

"Hamilton, you are --"

"Call me Alexander, please. Or _Alex._ Ooh yes, that's even better. And tonight we can --"

"First things first, Alex. Supper is first. There is plenty of time for _later._ "

**Author's Note:**

> -a-apparently i cannot write even a tiny bit of fluff without checking Shakespeare! whatever, i'm not gonna apologize. he wrote fanfic too and he thinks puns about dicks are very funny, we'd probably get along  
> -the "1996-1998" thing is a reference to my wife, who is amazing and deserves ALL THE FICS  
> -i worked in a library for a long time (does it show?) and, let me tell you, there is probably some front desk clerk with a crush on Burr who has just been overriding the system to let him renew this book for three months  
> -thank you goes to Google Translate for the Spanish, and my apologies to any Spanish-speakers who are dying with laughter at the mess GT makes of everything! (i really didn't want to have to explain to anyone in my real life why i needed that sentence translated)
> 
> *
> 
> sometimes i babble dramatically over on [tumblr](http://littledeconstruction.tumblr.com/)


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